Germany to launch gigabyte network by 2025

11 November 2016 | James Pearce

The German government has unveiled plans to deploy the infrastructure needed to hit 1Gbps broadband speeds across the country by 2025.

The rollout will take place across several stages, the first of which will we completed by the end of 2018, according to the ‘Gigabyte Society’ plan laid out by transport and infrastructure minister Alexander Dobrindt.

This initial stage will see all households become capable of being connected to at least a 50Mbps connection, with all new one-building projects forced to include a fibre to the home/ fibre to the building connection.

The plan, which was part of a new policy paper, will then see fibre infrastructure laid in new business zones and areas with poor connectivity by the end of 2019.

2020 will see the rollout of a 5G mobile network, before the plan enters its final phase, which will see the fibre and mobile infrastructure converge into a gigabyte-capable network.

The project is being funded in part by the German government, which has committed an additional €10 billion for the next phases to the €4 billion it has already spent; and the private sector, through the Net Alliance, which has already invested €8 billion.